Trump to deliver 2019 budget proposal to a Congress that largely rejected his 2018 plan

Here's the latest for Thursday, February 8th: Pence in South Korea ahead of Olympics; North Korea holds military parade; Senate leaders announce budget deal; Runners race up Empire State Building stairs.
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President Trump delivers the State of the Union address from the House chamber of the United States Capitol Jan. 30.(Photo: Jasper Colt, USA TODAY)

WASHINGTON — President Trump's first budget, billed as the blueprint to "drain the swamp," didn't go very far.

One year later, as Trump prepares to unveil his second spending plan, his push to defund significant parts of the U.S. government does not appear likely to gain much traction – thanks not only to congressional leaders in his own party but his own actions as well.

Trump's fiscal 2018 budget proposed slashing dozens of federal agencies and scores of programs including Superfund cleanup, rural air service and local health service grants. In the months since, the Republican-controlled Congress has largely rejected his cuts, with GOP lawmakers alternatively calling elements of the budget “misguided,” draconian” and “non-starters.”

As the president gets ready to unveil his 2019 budget proposal on Monday, he is finding that many of the recommendations he made last year for the previous fiscal year are, as Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain put it, “dead on arrival.”

And any opportunity for fiscal restraint seemed to evaporate early Friday morning when Congress approved a deal lifting tight spending caps known as the "sequester." The deal frees up up billions more for programs the president proposed slashing in his budget — a compromise the president himself cheered in a tweet because it significantly boosts Pentagon spending.

"We love and need our military and gave them everything — and more. First time this has happened in a long time" he tweeted after signing the bill.

Just signed Bill. Our Military will now be stronger than ever before. We love and need our Military and gave them everything — and more. First time this has happened in a long time. Also means JOBS, JOBS, JOBS!

Minutes later, the president weighed in with his displeasure that the deal increased domestic spending too, "We were forced to increase spending things we do not like or want to ... take care of our military," he tweeted.

Without more Republicans in Congress, we were forced to increase spending on things we do not like or want in order to finally, after many years of depletion, take care of our Military. Sadly, we needed some Dem votes for passage. Must elect more Republicans in 2018 Election!

Although the roughly three dozen GOP members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus voted against the budget deal because "growing the size of government by 13 percent is not what the voters sent us here to do," more Republicans in Congress would not necessarily mean less spending.

Presidents have always had a tough time convincing lawmakers of both parties to cut programs lawmakers believe benefit constituents. Former presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama each proposed eliminating dozens of programs and were largely rebuffed — even when Congress was controlled by their own party.

"All of these people favor cuts in the abstract until you get to the actual consequences," said Norm Ornstein, a congressional scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank.

The Environmental Protection Agency, a place where the regulatory mission is often in the cross-hairs of business interests and conservatives, was slated for the largest reduction among cabinet-level agencies at 31%.

But even many Republicans who have applauded Trump's "drain the swamp" mantra have pushed back on the budget cuts, including these three examples:

► The president’s budget proposed cutting funding for the National Institutes for Health by nearly $6 billion, or 18%, saying the agency should “focus resources on the highest priority research and training.”

The House Appropriation Committee responded by passing legislation that would actually increase NIH funding by $1.1 billion. The Senate Appropriations panel went further, adding $2 billion.

► The Housing and Urban Development budget called for the elimination of the Community Development Block Grant program, arguing that the program that began in 1974 “is not well-targeted to the poorest populations and has not demonstrated results.”

House and Senate appropriators ignored the president's recommendation by approving $3 billion.

"This program is vital to our nation’s downtown and neighborhood revitalization efforts, and the Committee believes that every effort must be made to protect this essential funding mechanism," the report from the Senate panel reads.

► The budget proposed cutting the cleanup of toxic Superfund sites dotting the country by 30% from $1.09 billion to $762 million, saying EPA should be "focusing on reining in Superfund administrative costs and promoting efficiencies."

The House Appropriations Committee, led by New Jersey Republican Rodney Frelinghuysen whose state has the most Superfund sites, approved an increase for the EPA to $1.1 billion. The Senate panel has yet to act but its chairman, Thad Cochran, R-Miss., is proposing to maintain the same level of funding as last year.

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Hundreds of the nation's most polluted places are at an increasing risk of spreading contamination beyond their borders as a result of more frequent storms and rising seas. Almost 2 million people live within a mile of these at-risk toxic sites. (Dec. 22)
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Elgie Holstein, senior director for Strategic Planning at the Environmental Defense Fund, said he's "pleasantly surprised" that Congress has not gone along with the bulk of the proposed reductions for EPA.

But he also points out that congressional committees are moving forward with cuts to the agency ($528 million in the House; $150 million in the Senate) that might look reasonable compared to Trump's proposal but are significant nonetheless to an agency that has gradually shrunk over the past decade.

"It could have been a whole lot worse," said Holstein, who held several senior posts in the Clinton administration and was an adviser on energy for Obama's campaign. "But even the (smaller) cuts that were adopted continued what has been a multi-year degradation of EPA's capabilities."

So why would Trump embrace the bipartisan budget deal that would pave the way for lawmakers to spend an extra $300 billion over the next two years on defense and domestic programs less than a year after submitting a budget that proposes slashing tens of billions in government funding?

Because, Ornstein said, the budget was really the product of Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney, the former South Carolina GOP congressman who was a founding member of the ultra-conservative tea party caucus in Congress — not Trump whom he said would rather cut deals and build projects despite his calls to "drain the swamp."

So Ornstein expects the budget that is scheduled to come out Monday to once again propose deep cuts in domestic spending.

"In some ways, (the spending deal) makes it even easier for Mulvaney to put his own wish list back in there because its not going to to go anywhere anyhow," Ornstein said. "It's symbolic of what he wants. And Congress is just going to ignore it."